Even the Devil gets Closure
by Kitty.M.Smith
Summary: After the events of the final, Bataar makes one last visit to Kuvira in prison to ask why she would ever fire the spirit cannon at him.


**I read iviscrit's KuviraxBataar fanfiction "Ironclad" and was inspired. I recommend it to anyone who appreciates a very well written story with memorable OC's and rather accurate portrayals of series characters. (I've sadly only gotten to chapter 3-4, but she is still updating it as of the posting date of this fanfiction and I again recommend y'all go read it).**

**This is a little thing, slighty a ship and slightly not. Not really fluffy, more of a scene I imagined happening after the chaos, where Bataar and Kuvira both get a sort of closure.**

**Legend of Korra - Nickalodian**

**Story - Mine entirely. Do not repost or anything else in any way, shape or form.**

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Kuvira was put on trial, and quickly locked away in solitary confinement in a wooden cell a hall down from Lin Beifong's office - once it was finished being rebuilt, of course.

Bataar Jr, after a short prison sentence, was given house arrest under a plea of insanity. Before being carted off to the airship bound for the reclaimed Zafou to engage in the reconciliation of the shredded relationship with his family, however, Bataar requested a last visit to Kuvira, and was escorted by Lin to the cell.

"I'll...be over there." Lin nodded down a short hall that led to another line of cells, concrete instead of wood. Bataar nodded a bit, a thin lipped thankful smile on his face, and then sat down in front of Kuvira's cell, cross legged. He adjusted his arms so that his elbows rested on his knees, the short chain between the cuffs on his wrists hovering over his boots.

In the cell, Kuvira hadn't turned around. She sat at a desk, wearing a light grey sleeveless top and matching pants that reached halfway down the calf. Her hair was in a braid that ran the length of her spine, curling at the tip. Bataar recalled the many times he'd seen the loose style in Zaofu, before this whole mess. Occasionally after, too, on the rare days that the dictator had on the train between cities, or while staying here or there. Usually only in his company, too. It'd been a sort of privilege to see the Great Uniter in ruffled bedclothes, and frizzy hair. Cursing as she shoved through yesterday's rumpled uniform, kept under the bed so a wandering eye didn't detect a crinkle in the seemingly undisturbed disorder of her quarters, for a stray bobby pin or hair clip. Something to tame the mess about her head.

Now, to see her so casual pained him. He wish he could have seen her face when she set the solar cannon at him and the other occupants of the warehouse. Was it pained? Determined? Joyful? Or uncaring enough to be indifferent? He surely hoped the last wasn't correct.

Licking his chapped lips, Bataar summoned a sound from his vocal cords, that only sounded vaugly enough like, "Kuvira" to attract her attention.

Her eyes weren't as sharp as the last time he'd seen them - which, he realized, was four or so months. Four months of lawyers, psychiatrists, arguments with his mother, arguments with his aunt, arguments with himself. Four months of banging his head against the wall for ever trusting Kuvira, and four months of a sick, lead weight in his stomach because he couldn't bring himself to remove the damn engagement ring.

Her eyes stopped when they connected with his, and then slowly traveled down his form, stopping at the chains on his wrists. She frowned in an unusually sad way, without a hint of distaste or dull agitation. "I thought you were acquitted."

"They put me on house arrest." He managed, each word coming slowly, chopped off in segments. He looked at his hands, rubbing the clammy skin together. "I'm leaving by airship today."

"Oh." Kuvira's shoulderblades became less prominent as she relaxed, one hand now resting on her arm, gripping tightly. "Good."

"Are they keeping you here?" He asked, glancing around the cell. It had nothing else besides a wooden toilet, a cot, and a desk with a chair. There was some paper stacked neatly next to pens on top of said desk, though. Along with a packet of envelopes.

"They are for now." She turned her head to the papers, quietly, thoughtfully. "Lin and Suyin are talking with whomever else need be to see if it is necessary for me to be moved to a high security facility." She snorted in disgust. "It's not needed. I have no intention of ever breaking out; the only time I'll ever be leaving this or any other prison is through entirely legal means." She sighed, bending her shoulders back over the back of the chair, letting her body slip forward, her back popping as she flipped her head up and exhaled deeply. The frown came again, sadder than before. "I've caused enough trouble already."

Bataar's heart ached, but he swallowed the lump in his throat and continued with a dry tongue, "I didn't really have much of a reason to come here and talk to you, except to ask what your...idea was with -" He paused, words straggling in his mouth as he thought exactly how he wished to place his question. Kuvira noticed the silence, rolled her eyes back to look from her recumbent position, and then scoot back up in her chair and stepped up. She walked up to the bars that separated them and sat down, copying Bataar's position and staring at him until he met her eyes.

"Bataar," she began, her tone chilling in its casualness. Almost as if they weren't separated by a prison door and separate sentences, "Are you trying to ask why I shot you with the spirit cannon?"

He swallowed, forcing himself to maintain eye contact as he said, "Yes."

She sighed, her shoulders sagging, leaning over with her elbows on her knees, staring at her fingers as they gently rested on the wooden floor. "I thought I had to make a sacrifice."

"W-What?"

Her fingers loosely clenched. "I know you're not deaf, dear. I thought that...that since everyone had to sacrifice something, a job, a home, someone they loved, I thought you were the sacrifice I had to make. I thought I'd made plenty in uniting the Earth Kingdom, giving up Su and Zaofu and everyone back home. I thought I'd given what was my due in order to reunite the empire. I guess I realized in the end that...despite my efforts, there was more...More loosing and sacrificing than winning, on everyone's part. When you were stuck in that warehouse with Su and the others, I don't know what made me think it precisely, but I thought I'd have to make a sacrifice by loosing you in order to finish everything - for the greater good, I had to give up the last person on this Earth who loved me."

He gazed at her fingers, watching them clench tighter and tighter as she spoke. Her tone remained calm and steady even as her nails threatened to pierce her skin. "I still love you."

One hand un-clenched, reaching through the bars and then stopping. Her hand was close enough to his cheek he swore he could feel the cold coming off of it. He felt the cold entirely when she placed it on his cheek, and gently brushed the back of her fingers down to his jaw. "I know, and I love you too - too much to ask you to forgive me, and too much to ask you to write. In the end, Bataar, I didn't loose or sacrifice anything but my humanity, and I regret it with every fiber of my being."

Bataar wished with all he had that he could say she was wrong, that she hadn't sacrificed her humanity in favor of a new government, or that she didn't need to regret what she'd done. The stark reality and truth though, that which laced together the cuffs around his wrists, reminded him that that wasn't true. They'd both done bad things - horrible things. Each had lost part of their humanity - Kuvira obviously more than him, and it was going to take them a long time to get it back. He couldn't forgive her, either. She'd messed him up in so many ways he couldn't count, and he'd let her. The dawning realization that he'd let this woman drag him down to the ground made him feel ill. The further realization that he was still so oddly hung up on her made him gag.

"I shouldn't love you," he more or less thought aloud, "But I do."

She patted his cheek, lightly, almost teasingly, just like the shadow of a smile on her face. "You deserve so much better, Bataar. You're brilliant, loyal, and have a good heart. Broken, but repairable. And when everything is back together, you'll be stronger than ever, and help rebuild the Earth Kingdom to something I never could have accomplished."

"Careful, you're getting poetic." He said almost huskily, chuckling with her lightly.

"Nevertheless." Kuvira slowly slid her hand from his jaw and to his chest, resting the back of it over his heart a half minute before then moving both hands to his cuffed ones and squeezing them, breathing deeply. "Do yourself and me a favor, Bataar, and don't let someone like me ever hold you down again." She slowly slipped his engagement ring off of his finger and placed it in the palm of his hand. He stared, and then clenched it.

"I'll write." He said quietly before slipping it in his pocket and standing up. Kuvira followed suit as Lin walked over.

"We should get to the ship." She said, not sparing a glance at Kuvira, despite having probably heard everything.

Bataar nodded and began to walk with his aunt, stopping just before the half constructed doorway that led out of the cell block. He pivoted on his heel, seeing Kuvira leaning against the wall nearest him, her head cocked just slightly, legs crossed at the ankle, one arm against the bars. "I know your true intentions, regarding the Earth Kingdom. I want you to know...I...I want you to know, Kuvira, that no matter what happens, no one is going to abandon it. Everything I have will go to supporting, reconstructing, and healing the Earth Kingdom, and it will never suffer how you did."

There was a pause, the air still and cool, but it was slowly broken by the widening smile of a woman who felt that, finally, her child was in good hands.


End file.
